Nobles' Club CXLIII: Sitting Bull of the Native Americans

[Noble Zarkon]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level, at any speed and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Sitting Bull of the Native Americans, whom we last played in NC LXII. The Native Americans start with Agriculture and Fishing.

• Traits: Sitting Bull is PHIlosophical, meaning he generates Great People Points twice as fast, and PROtective, meaning walls and castles can be built faster, and archery and gunpowder units start with City Garrison I and Drill I. The latter synergizes with the UB.
  
• The UB: The Totem Pole, a monument that gives +3 XP to archery units (but. sadly, not gunpowder ones). With a barracks and PRO, this means an archery unit starts with 6 XP -- two promotions, which takes archers to Drill III or City Garrison III. If you get to Feudalism before everyone else, it's possible that Drill III longbows can conquer a few cities for you.
  
  
  
  
• The UU: The Dog Soldier, a resourceless but weaker axeman (4 instead of 5) although somewhat offet by +100% against melee instead of 50%.
  
  

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Tectonics, 60% water. This script is designed to produce mountain ranges, and simulate plate tectonics, giving more realistic/earthlike terrain (mountain ranges, mountains near the coasts like the Andes or between subcontinents like the Himalaia). Generally this script produces less land than typical maps. The AIs were chosen to give a bit of flavour, they have all been under represented in NC games.

Spoiler edits :

Extended a river and moved one resource nearer. Added an extra AI as the test runs showed one AI had too much space.

Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC number Leader Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Reserved.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

One possible way to synergise Sitting Bull's traits and UB is to stay small and go for culture, Philosophical will help generate Great Artists and early Totem Poles are good for culture. CGIII Archers (as note above you can get these if you build them in a city with Barracks and a Totem Pole) are good defenders although careful diplomacy is still needed.

 

[Jarno]

The UU: The Dog Soldier, a resourceless but weaker axeman (4 instead of 5).

Don't forget the +100% instead of +50% vs. Melee

Stone could be useful for SH -> free totem poles.

 

[The Diocletian]

That start.

Looking at the picture, that appears to be jungle west of the corn, hmm. Warrior move to bananas, IMO, but right now I'm thinking 1S of worker for our capitol.

 

[MegaLurker]

Tempting to settle either on the stone or the bananas, both retain fresh water. Stone site could run 4 specialists at size 6, 7 specialists at size 11 while still giving one of the clams away

 

[learner gamer]

That start.

Looking at the picture, that appears to be jungle west of the corn, hmm. Warrior move to bananas, IMO, but right now I'm thinking 1S of worker for our capitol.

FWIW, I'd be more inclined to move the warrior 1SW, just to see if there's seafood in that water. If there isn't, I'd be thinking of moving the settler 2NW, 1W to provide a starting location with two corn, stone, a grassland hill, eventually bananas and whatever is in the fog. That gives Bull a chance to farm the corn and get some good production from the stone (via masonry) and a grassland hill immediately. I'd then look to address the lack of commerce in that location (unless there's something in the fog) by looking to settle the seafood site as city #2.

EDIT: @MegaLurker: that's a great thought - think about settling on the stone.

 

[elmurcis]

Looks good.. should give a try Let see what can get here with.. Emp/Mara for example

 

[elitetroops]

Tempting to settle either on the stone or the bananas, both retain fresh water.

I don't think that's a fresh water lake. To get fresh water we have to move to the river. I'd still consider settling stone or banana though. Only problem with stone is lack of hammers, but the massive amounts of food could probably make up for this as long as we aren't running caste.

Settler Warrior SW first in any case. If there is seafood on that side, then settling 2W could be considered.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Don't forget the +100% instead of +50% vs. Melee

Thanks - I've added that in, also noted that I chose the AIs for this game.

 

[Izuul]

Philo + stone + truck loads of food. Mids = no brainer.

Corn needs to be in capitol BFC here, so moving west in some fashion is mandatory. On top of stone seems like the best choice. No turn lost moving settler, 12T worker, no need to hook up stone, and still get 2H city tile + 2 hills. I don't see the capitol getting more production by settling anywhere else. That's the only spot that puts both hills in the BFC.

5 forests to chop into mids (200H total), and 9 base hammers with both mines, so settler whips into Mids are probably good here unless there's another good production site close by where 2nd city can grow fast and build mids.

Not having fresh water for the capitol kinda stinks though.

 

[pandamancer]

Nooo... So many good maps, so little time!

 

[Hurricane Jane]

Well, Sitting Bull, I have somewhat of a love/hate-relationship with that guy. I actually do like to play him, his UU and UB are pretty decent, even though I'm not much of a Monument-builder and I like to axe rush. His starting techs lead to early food resources, so you don't have to think about that as much as in some other games.

His traits.. I don't like PHI as I probably should do.. but it's an okay trait nonetheless for me. I like spamming cottages more than bulbing with great people, but it can turn out okay. For the protective trait, it's normally pretty poor but with the Totem Pole it's actually pretty powerful. You can get Drill III pretty quickly on longbows and crossbows, and that's, well... pretty powerful when played right.

I like the Totem Pole. The replacements of the Monument are okay, and this one is decent with the PRO trait. It's worth going Stonehenge for when you have early stone. Dog Soldiers are okay, but they don't match well with the strong Archers. You already have a unit that's strong, why get another one without specific resources? Then again, I don't think the DS is worse than an Axeman. It's a tad more defensive though, but they both hold no chance against Chariots and are almost equal against Melee units. The Axeman gets an bonus against Archers though, which makes an Dog rush almost hopeless.

The start is great. Stone in the BFC is so powerful for Totem Poles. Six(!!!) food resources n a BFC is like a whipping machine, and it's equally great with the PHI trait. I think settling on the stone is the best choice. SIP, 1S, 1W or 2W could be decent options as well.

Important techs are obviously Bronze, Hunting->Archery and Mysticism for Stonehenge. Don't know what to do with early Great Prophets from SH at the moment. Really depends on the enemies.

And maybe Mids after Henge.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Wow - those are going to be some _fat_ Dog Soldiers.

Philo + stone + truck loads of food. Mids = no brainer.

Corn needs to be in capitol BFC here, so moving west in some fashion is mandatory. On top of stone seems like the best choice. No turn lost moving settler, 12T worker, no need to hook up stone, and still get 2H city tile + 2 hills. I don't see the capitol getting more production by settling anywhere else. That's the only spot that puts both hills in the BFC.

5 forests to chop into mids (200H total), and 9 base hammers with both mines, so settler whips into Mids are probably good here unless there's another good production site close by where 2nd city can grow fast and build mids.

Not having fresh water for the capitol kinda stinks though.

Quoted in full because I love this analysis.

Another idea that might be fun to play with would be the Great Lighthouse. If you settle westward (I, too, endorse Stoneville), you've got room for another city on the other side of the bay that will have access to all three clams and fresh water. The corn can be shared by a coastal city to the west.

Of course, you shouldn't commit until you have more information about the neighborhood....

 

[Choggy]

That start is just plain ridiculous. I don't know the techtonics map script too well apart from an IU game from a little while back which was all hills and food and nothing to cottage. On that basis Izuul has the strategy nailed on.

 

[MegaLurker]

FWIW, I'd be more inclined to move the warrior 1SW, just to see if there's seafood in that water. If there isn't, I'd be thinking of moving the settler 2NW, 1W to provide a starting location with two corn, stone, a grassland hill, eventually bananas and whatever is in the fog. That gives Bull a chance to farm the corn and get some good production from the stone (via masonry) and a grassland hill immediately. I'd then look to address the lack of commerce in that location (unless there's something in the fog) by looking to settle the seafood site as city #2.

EDIT: @MegaLurker: that's a great thought - think about settling on the stone.

Right, duh, it's 2 food because it's all clams

Settling on stone doesnt really lose any production in the sense that there are only two visible hills and that spot gives you both, plus the extra hammer on the city tile. That's actually the most production you can get on this opening screenshot, unless those are hills to the south.

I thought most mapscripts always had your settler start next to fresh water? Not with tectonics, or has the settler been moved? Anyway, this one has Deity 'Mids abuse written all over it. Philosophical? Too perfect.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I thought most mapscripts always had your settler start next to fresh water? Not with tectonics, or has the settler been moved? Anyway, this one has Deity 'Mids abuse written all over it. Philosophical? Too perfect.

Doubt you'll think it's too perfect once you play a bit

As for the start think its a tectonics thing but you generate enough maps (and map finder running overnight can generate thousands) and you find what people think of as rules are more like guidelines!


Sent from my Android phone

 

[learner gamer]

Right, duh, it's 2 food because it's all clams

What?

 

[MegaLurker]

Doubt you'll think it's too perfect once you play a bit

I dunno, I'm finding it quite to my liking. It's of course too early to really say but this could shape up to be one of my faster victories at this difficulty, maybe even my fastest.

Deity up to 500BC:

Spoiler :

Settled on the stone. This ends up making city placement a little awkward because 2 further cities now won't be settled on the river for the health bonus. But this also means 2 more green riverside tiles for the eventual bureau cap. The land available to you even on Deity on this map is ridiculously good. A little light on production on the eastern half of the land but soooo much food to go with the gold, stone, and marble. Seeing this I prioritized settlers over workers and didn't really get the balance just right (some settlers spending turns waiting for roads/worker turns) but I secured every spot I hoped for.

As the rest of the early wonders go superfast, the Great Wall stays available so I take the opportunity to do some early wealth-building:

Not a good screenshot but it's showing the 92 fail-gold from the GW in 1160BC. That, my friends, is sweet. Then a few turns later:

Built mostly with whip overflow and plain old product, with only 2 forests chopped. Leaving me with plenty of forest to chop after maths.

The extent of the empire at 800BC:

3 libraries up already with 4 rep scientists already being run, with the Cahokia just waiting to grow in a couple turns to bring that count to 6. A settler, as you can see, already sitting on my future bureau cap spot 2N3W of Cahokia just waiting for some workers. The Location of Mound City was strategic, I really wanted to settled the spot 3E first but Gilgamesh had a settle on his way. He would have settled on the same peninsula and, being creative, would have cost that city the cows. Mound City blocked off that entire peninsula for me even before it got a border pop, because Cahokia's border had popped twice and covered the only other tiles available to a settler.

The trouble is of course that Gilgamesh and Toku are not nice neighbours. Fortunately Gilgamesh has plenty of (what appears to be useless) land to settle to his west so that gives me some time. Toku shared borders with Zara much earlier than me and, luckily, that's who he plotted against. So far so good.

And last but not least, the reason I'm so confident this game. Have you ever seen a tech screen like this on Deity without some cheesy triple gold/gems start?

Spoiler :

I sure haven't

 

[MegaLurker]

What?

I was looking at all the 2F water tiles and thinking it was because it's a freshwater lake when it's obviously because it's clams